Inflammation of soft tissue areas of the human body may occur in many ways. For example, inflammation may occur as the result of a major trauma, such as surgery, or as the result of repeated micro-trauma, such as overtraining. The body responds to such inflammation by forming fibrous adhesions, or scar tissue, as an unavoidable by-product of the healing process. The scar tissue forms in soft tissue areas of the body, such as muscles, tendons, and ligaments, and in the area between the muscle and the connective tissue (fascia). As scar tissue builds up, it prevents the muscles, tendons, and ligaments from properly lengthening and contracting, thereby resulting in lost range of motion, pain, and decreased stability. In addition, the build-up of scar tissue generally causes pain in the affected joint and surrounding areas. This pain often causes the sufferer to believe that an injury still exists; however, in most cases, the injury itself has healed. Therefore, it is desirable to loosen or remodel the scar tissue so that the joint and surrounding tissues may achieve a greater level of performance.
Scar tissue can be broken down or remodeled by various soft tissue therapy techniques, which involves use of the trainer's hand to manually massage the skin over the affected soft tissue areas to release scar tissue adhesions and regain lost resting length in the tissue. This type of massage can include cross-frictional massage, deep muscle massage, and rolfing.
Tools are known in the art for use in this type of massage in order to loosen fibrous scar tissue adhesions from underlying soft tissue of a patient. Such tools are described in, for example U.S. Pat. No. 6,126,620, to Graston. Such devices typically have an elongate rigid body with a first flat surface and a second flat surface opposite from the first flat surface, and a peripheral edge extending about the circumference of the body of tool. A portion of the peripheral edge may be configured in the shape of an arc or series of arcs, corresponding to the various shapes and contours of selected parts of a patient's body, from which a scar tissue adhesion is to be loosened from the underlying soft tissue. A further portion of the peripheral edge can include a tapered surface to define an edge.
However, these prior art devices are made of smooth materials such as steel or other metal products including aluminium, plastics, ceramics, or polished stone products, such as jade, or the like.
While these devices have been successfully used by manual therapists, it would be beneficial to the industry to provide improved fascial abrasion technique (F.A.T.) tools to aid in providing a more effective release of the fibrous adhesions.